Join us for a live event!

We are joining Governor John Kasich and former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on Thursday, May 19th for a statewide event to watch the film 'Waiting for Superman' and participate in a live webcast and discussion about education in Ohio. The movie begins the discussion about how public education must change in Ohio and the US, and begins the discussion about how we can bring Montessori and other alternative education to the rest of the public. We know that Montessori is the best, and ONLY scientifically crafted, way to educate children. We need a plan to bring this method of education to public schools in meaningful numbers. With the systems currently in place this is not possible. We should be MAD, as Trevor Eissler says, that Montessori is not even known as an option. We should be MAD that even if parents know about Montessori, there is often no nearby and affordable Montessori education for most families. Montessori should not be an education for only those that can afford to pay for a private school AND pay taxes to their local public school. It is shameful that public school children, even in suburban districts as the movie will show, do not have access to the best method of education. The screening will take place at Jane's Montessori Academy, 1375 Francisco Rd, Columbus, OH 43220. Please email contact@janesacademy.com to RSVP. We will provide pizza for dinner during the screening. There will be a babysitter for children who attend. You can watch a short video message from Governor Kasich here. Governor Kasich and Michelle Rhee will be participating in a live screening of the movie hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. How will it work? • At 6:00pm, we will tune in for a live online webcast with the Governor to make introductory remarks. • At 6:10pm, the webcast will take a break for the movie and we’ll watch the Waiting for Superman movie at your house party. • At 8:00pm, the movie will end and we will tune in again online for the second half of the live webcast and watch a discussion about the film with Gov. Kasich and Michelle Rhee. Questions can be submitted online through Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for your support and we hope that you can join us on May 19th! Sincerely, Tammy Chabria Principal and Owner Jane's Montessori Academy - Please click here to learn more about Michelle Rhee - Please click here to watch the official trailer for Waiting for Superman

Grades, Success and Tiger Mothers

“Once we have accepted and established our principles, the abolition of prizes and external forms of punishment will follow naturally. Man, disciplined through liberty, begins to desire the true and only prize which will never belittle or disappoint him,- the birth of human power and liberty within that inner life of his from which his activities must spring.”
-- Dr. Maria Montessori
My System of Education

(A Montessori quick bite from The Center for Guided Montessori Studies: http://www.guidedstudies.com/)

On January 8th The Wall Street Journal published an upsetting article by author Amy Chua titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”. An excerpt from her new book, the article claims that the secret to academic success is tyrannical control over the child. Ms. Chua proudly explains that her two daughters were never allowed to have play dates, choose their own extracurricular activities, or receive any grade other than an A.

Furthermore, she explains what she calls her “Chinese” negative motivation technique – insulting her children by calling them “garbage” and threatening them with the loss of meals, presents, toys and birthday parties. Ms. Chua says, “the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child.” In one particularly abusive example, she recounts denying her daughter the right to eat or use the bathroom for hours until she mastered a piano piece.

Ms. Chua calls this technique of parenting through physical and emotional domination the “Chinese mother” style. In recent television appearances she has defiantly shown an appalling lack of self awareness of the cruelty she has wrought on her children. She will, she says, leave it for “Western” mothers to raise the “losers”.

The invidious stereotypes of Ms. Chua’s article have caused some controversy to be sure. Like many others, I can say that her characterization of Asian families is certainly not backed up in my experience – and I’m married into one. I suspect that Ms. Chua has rationalized her abusive behavior by cloaking it in the generalization that she is, somehow, normal.

Ah, but only if she were that rare! There are many parents of all ethnicities who think any behavior should be excused in the name of raising grades. Children hate working, goes the thinking, therefore the only way to get them to excel is to subjugate their will to their wiser elders.

As Montessorians, we know that cultivating intrinsic motivation is the most effective way to increase the productivity of both children and adults. Ms. Chua was correct in that she could, for a time, force her children to do better in school by dominating and emotionally abusing them. But in her memoir, Ms. Chua herself recounts the dramatic rebellion of her younger daughter.

But perhaps the weakest element of Amy Chua’s reasoning is the assumption that grades will themselves lead to success in life. Even many of the arguments made against her accept the axiom that a high GPA promises wealth, prosperity and happiness. In fact, this is not the case. The tragedy is that she traumatized her daughters for nothing.

What is success? If measured by income, grades at best weakly correlate with success. Persons who get A’s and B’s generally earn a bit more over their lifetimes than those who received C’s and D’s in high school and college. On the other hand, many studies paint a very different picture. For example, a longitudinal study of valedictorians show that they are no more – and perhaps less – likely than their peers to be successful in any measureable way. This study was described by Sheila Tobias as “An important corrective to the notion that success in high school inevitably prefigures success in college, in life, or in careers.” Another study of success by Richard St. John also concluded that grading does not lead to success and identified 8 traits that were strongly correlated.

“ Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn. ”
-- Dr. Alice Miller

In other words, good grades mean something but not a lot. Richard Branson, Thomas Edison and Isaac Newton were all undistinguished students, and Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade. Both Charles Darwin and Carl Jung were called “stupid” by their teachers, and Louis Pasteur was near the bottom of his class in college. Leo Tolstoy flunked right out. Werner Von Braun failed algebra and Louisa May Alcott was told she would never succeed as a writer.

Academic success is at best an imperfect predictor of success if measured by either income or notoriety.

So, what is the best predictor of success? New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman makes a convincing argument for emotional intelligence (EI) – the ability to understand and cooperate well with other human beings. In a study of the outcomes of students who attended Harvard in the 1940s, Goleman found that those “with the highest test scores in college were not particularly successful compared to their lower-scoring peers in terms of salary, productivity or status in their field, nor did they have the greatest life satisfaction, nor the most happiness with friendships, family and romantic relationships."

On the other hand, Goleman identified a clear connection between emotional intelligence and every other measure of success that he measured. People with a high EI are the ones “who truly succeed in work as well as play, building flourishing careers and lasting, meaningful relationships.” Is it a coincidence that peaceful, cooperative work is at the heart of the Montessori method, rather than grades? Once again, modern science catches up with Dr. Montessori’s prescience.

Certainly doing well in school doesn’t necessitate the abandonment of individuality, nor does it follow that if you receive good marks in school that you must be an unoriginal thinker.

But three things are readily apparent:

• The traditional school system rewards rote memorization more than creativity, yet the workplace requires creativity more often than rote memorization.
• The traditional school system pits students against each other in class rankings and measures each child’s work in isolation, yet it is success in navigating the dynamics of group projects that plays a more essential role in the modern workplace.
• By pressuring a child to do better in school, a parent also pressures a child to become that thing which the school most rewards – a rote memorizer pitted against other rote memorizers.

Integral to the Montessori method is respect for the child. The child is neither a tabula rasa, nor a willful opponent, but a unique and marvelous creation. Dr. Montessori built her method on the bedrock of mutual understanding, cooperative projects and conflict resolution. We hold in our hearts the faith that a more peaceful and joyful world is found in the secrets of childhood Dr. Montessori studied a century ago.

Science now suggests that the very same method could unlock a more productive and wealthier world as well. In economically uncertain times, what are our leaders waiting for?

Thoughts for the day:

• If there is so much evidence that grades don’t matter, why are they still used for assessment?
• What role does assessment and progress reports play in a Montessori environment? How do you personally support children’s natural motivation to learn without imposing predetermined goals and standards?
• In Montessori we consider observation to be our main method of assessment. What systems have you put in place to help you perform this most important part of our job?

Come see Trevor Eissler!

Trevor Eissler, author of Montessori Madness, will be visiting Columbus, OH on February 10th, 2011 from 7-9 pm at Ohio Dominican University. We encourage all families interested in Montessori, school-choice, and non-traditional education to attend.

JMA Blogs!

If you get a chance, please stop by to see our teacher's blogs, some good reading!

Children's House 1 (Ms. Tina and Ms. Julie)

http://jtclass.wordpress.com/

Children's House 2 (Ms. Megan)

http://www.windowfromhome.blogspot.com/

Outdoor Classroom (Mr. Mat):

http://yellowslide.wordpress.com/

Have a great winter day!

Why do children lie?

A question I get from parents often is "Why is my child lying?"

So here are some reasons why children make up stories (which is not unordinary):

1) They will fabricate a fantasy world if they are unsatisfied with something in their world. Make up stories, even believing them to be true. Typically, these result in stories about things they wish they could do or have done. They are a means of escape. Dr. Montessori calls these fugues.

2) Another reason for a fugue like this may be something he or she has seen on television. They will play out or live out stories from television or movies. Sometimes so much that being in reality is difficult or boring.

4) To relay a story they want to tell but remove themselves from the story so they do not have consequences. For instance, if a child got hit at school and he or she wants to tell the parents, conveniently leaving out the part that he or she hit first.

5) To get someone else that they are holding a grudge against in trouble. For instance, if another student accidentally ruined his or her work, or if a teacher stopped him or her from doing something he or she wanted to do a story is made up to get the offending person in trouble.

6) Sometimes stories are fabricated out of laziness. I do not want to think of the answer, so I'll just make something up.

7) Sometimes constant accusations of the adult drive the child to lie, and therefore not to expose his or her inferiority.

8) She or he is having very vivid dreams, so vivid that in the daytime it is believed that they have actually happened. This can begin suddenly because of a dietary change, medication, life circumstances, or maybe she just is coming into a cognitive ability to remember dreams.

9) We lie to them. All the time. Santa, Easter Bunny, I just do not have time to look up the real answer, oh that story is so cute I'll tell you that as if that is a real answer, a misplaced need to "protect" children from the truth, a mistaken assumption that they would not understanding the truth or are not ready for it, marketing, and a number of other reasons that we do not tell them facts. Really, adults lie to them so often, why would it NOT be all right for them to lie to us?

If your child is lying, look deeply to see why they might be doing this. And then fix their environment to remove the reason they are lying. If it is television, turn it off. If it is our constant badgering or nagging, try to stop. And, most importantly we need to stop lying to them. I am not saying lay out the world and all of its uglies in one fell swoop. But, if they ask a question, answer it. Honestly. Or, say "I don't know, but I will find out the answer." (and then actually find out the answer and tell them).

Remember, you only have to answer the question they ask. A question about where babies grow does not need to be a whole birds and bees conversation, just say "they grow in the uterus of the mommy, here is a picture of the uterus, it is here in the body." Notice, I didn't say to tell them that they grow in a flower field and then a stork picks them up and delivers them.

Because of You

I went to a Reba McEntire concert last night and she was singing the Kelly Clarkson song Because of You, which is on her Duets album (sung with Kelly Clarkson). As I was listening to the song, which I knew but had never really thought about, I realized what a Montessori song this is. It expresses the dangers of an adult getting in the way of child development, and therefore passing on their adult hang-ups. We often do not realize how we can set up children for failure by our own risk avoidance. We pass our fears, our wishes for what we wanted our lives to be like, all onto our children, leaving them unable to blossom as their spirit should. Take it as a lesson when you are interacting with your children, let them explore, live THEIR lives (not yours).

Because of You by Kelly Clarkson

I will not make the same mistakes that you did

I will not let myself cause my heart so much misery

I will not break the way you did, You fell so hard

I've learned the hard way, to never let it get that far

Because of you I'll never stray too far from the sidewalk

Because of you I learned to play on the safe side

So I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust

Not only me, but everyone around me

Because of you I am afraid I lose my way

And it's not too long before you point it out I cannot cry

Because I know that's weakness in your eyes

I'm forced to fake, a smile, a laugh

Every day of my life

My heart can't possibly break When it wasn't even whole to start with

Because of you I'll never stray too far from the sidewalk

Because of you I learned to play on the safe side

So I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust

Not only me, but everyone around me

Because of you I am afraid I watched you die

I heard you cry

Every night in your sleep

I was so young

You should have known better than to lean on me

You never thought of anyone else

You just saw your pain

And now I cry

In the middle of the night

For the same damn thing

Because of you

I'll never stray too far from the sidewalk

Because of you I learned to play on the safe side

So I don't get hurt

Because of you I tried my hardest just to forget everything

Because of you I don't know how to let anyone else in

Because of you I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty

Because of you I am afraid

Because of you Because of you

Amazing Valedictorian Speech

Let's start an education revolution!

The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School in NY on June 25, 2010:

Here I Stand
Erica Goldson

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." 
The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" 
Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. (Gatto)

To illustrate this idea, doesn't it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn't for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don't have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can't run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be - but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn't have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!